Open Society Foundations Praise New Transparency Pact

NEW YORK—The Open Society Foundations today welcome the launch of the Open Government Partnership. Endorsed by 43 countries, the initiative is an important means by which to encourage governments to uphold the principles of transparency and accountability. These principles are at the core of the work of the Open Society Foundations. We support the Transparency and Accountability Initiative, a donor collaborative dedicated to empowering citizens to hold their governments to account, and we support civil society groups in more than 60 countries to do the same.

Some of the governments have signaled their intent to take meaningful steps in connection with this initiative to advance their own practices. We call on each government to use this opportunity to review and improve their policies.

We applaud presidents Obama and Rousseff for having launched this initiative. We intend to work with partners around the world to wholeheartedly support and monitor the efforts of governments to make these commitments and to fulfill them.

We are particularly pleased that the United States has committed itself in its own “Action Plan” under the Open Government Partnership to implement the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, and we trust that the U.S. will take further steps to demonstrate its commitment to openness.